Patience & Time
by Pandora Jones
Summary: 'Patience' - Tony watches the sunrise in Paris.  'Time' - Even in a Parisian hotel room Ziva has trouble sleeping.  Set just prior to 'Jetlag.' Two shot.
1. Chapter 1

Patience

-pandorajones

It was a nice room.

Big, clean, nice smell, soft bed, 255 channels. What more did he need, really?

It was a computer glitch; that's what the front desk had said.

One room, one night for NCIS.

One room... not two.

Some sort of pastry chef convention... Seriously?

All booked up.

So you make do, right?

They made do.

He could have taken the couch...

She could have.

But...

'We are adults, Tony,' she had said. He had nodded in a very grown up fashion. 'And it is not as if we haven't shared a bed before.'

He wished she hadn't added that part.

Because for the longest time last night it was in his head. Again. It still lingered there now, milling about in the corners, dusting the cobwebs.  
_  
__'There's only one thing I'm interested in right now.'_

That's what she'd said, wasn't it? Then she'd given him that look. The look. Only this time she hadn't laughed and walked away. This time she'd held it and he'd kissed her. And she'd kissed him and he can remember rapid removal of clothing and falling into bed. Then it got kinda blurry for a bit... Her hair in his face, his teeth scraping her shoulder... A jumbled mess of everything and nothing. It was the job. It was a job. It had to look convincing.

They'd fooled the FBI.

It bothers him now that he can't quite remember her kiss. He knows it was hot, remembers the rush, remembers wanting more, wanting her... But he can't remember the taste of her lips on his. It bothers him. Nearly five years ago now... The girl he'd taken to bed that night was bold and brash and reckless and well... kinda crazy. She challenged him. She made him laugh. She'd give him that look, then that grin, and then she'd walk away.

It hardly ever happened anymore. He missed it. He missed her. Sometimes he _really_ missed her.

It has to be nearly morning. Through the gap in the curtains he is sure the sky is getting lighter. He checks his watch. Just past six. He'll get up soon, he tells himself, he'll make coffee and watch the sun rise. It is Paris after all. They say Parisian sunrise is beautiful.

She shifts a little beside him. He takes the opportunity to move his arm; just a little, just enough to restore the blood flow. He resists the urge to play his fingers through her hair; he doesn't want to wake her. If he woke her she wouldn't be curled against his chest, if he woke her she'd be on the far side of the bed with her back to him... like she was last night. Ziva David does not need comforting. She does not want it. She does not deserve it.

He wonders how many times she's told herself that.

He watches her sleep. He likes to watch her sleep. She looks... comfy: Her head on his shoulder, one arm across his chest, right thigh overlapping his. She looks... peaceful. He's grateful for this. It's been far too long.

It was about 2 o'clock this morning when she'd woken him. She hadn't meant to and he'd pretended she hadn't. He'd watched her in the darkness; the demons that torment her clearly audible in her breathing. Swallow, rapid, choked...

Fear.

He hated the sound. It was too clear a reminder. _When will it be over? Will it ever be over?__  
_  
He'd wanted so badly to say something, but he couldn't find the words. To do something, but what? If she'd even known he was awake, she'd have been sleeping on the couch or in the bathtub or anywhere else she could hide. So he pretended it wasn't happening.  
At least he'd tried to.

_Suicide is for when you are captured. _ She'd said that to him once. She had sworn to herself to never be captured alive - And then she was...

He could remember the smell: dirt and piss and burlap. The scratch of the sack on his face, sand everywhere, chained and in the dark. He and McGee had lived it for two days. Ziva was with Saleem for four months. Four months chained, on her knees, in the dark. He wondered how often she'd thought about death. He wondered if she had tried to kill herself. He wondered if she tried to provoke her captors into doing it for her... He wondered how often she had begged to die.

She won't talk about it. He's tried. _'What is there to talk about?' _is her response. _The past is the past._

Some days he's wondered, if she were to open up, would he be prepared to hear it? How much does he really want to know? Would she be better off talking to Ducky or Gibbs or anyone but him? He knows _'chained and in the dark' _is the best case scenario_._ He doesn't want to think about the worst. Four months - the Mossad officer in the lion's den...

He hates what it's done to her.

He could still hear her beside him, trying to regulate her breathing, trying to calm herself down. It tore at him, turned his stomach to knots_. Does she sleep through the night at home? Do nightmares wake her there too?  
_  
He couldn't help it. He couldn't_ just_ _listen_ anymore. Rolling over, he threw a heavy arm across her and pulled her to him. He mumbled something about Salma Hayek and Desperado and hoped she bought it. _She couldn't be angry if he was asleep, right? _

He'd felt her whole body stiffen.

And he waited.

She wasn't going to shoot him, her gun was on the chair.

She might break his arm...

She didn't.

But it was a full ten minutes before he finally felt her relax.

Another ten and she was asleep.

When he woke up this morning she was as she is now - head on his shoulder, dark hair spilled over the pillow. He was going to get up. He was going to make coffee. But he doesn't want to move... She's asleep...

The first rays of sunlight creep yellow fingers across the white linen, play in her hair, on her shoulder. He watches as they light her ear, her cheek... It's a slow process.

That's what Ducky says.

She just needs time.

How much time?

Be patient.

He can do patient. He doesn't always like it but he can do it. Patience is good. Patience allows you to appreciate what you do have.

The light creeps further, catches her eyelashes, her nose, her lips...

He smiles.

They were right, whoever _they_ are.

Paris does have the most beautiful sunrise.

******************


	2. Chapter 2

Time  
-pandorajones

*

*

It always starts the same way.

Cold.

She tells herself that's the trigger. She doesn't know if it's true.

Why should tonight be any different?

But... tonight...

Tony likes to sleep with the window open.

She used to as well, used to love a warm bed and a cold room. But now... now she can't stand it, now the room has to be warm, sweltering even.

Because if it's not...

The desert is cold at night.

She'd never been that cold and still managed to sleep. But there, she had no choice. There she'd slept; hard wall, hard floor, pipe digging into her back, cuffs digging into her wrists, her ankles. She'd close her eyes and try to pretend she was somewhere else. Search her memory for cold, uncomfortable places where she'd slept peaceably, where she's felt safe. She'd imagine the woods behind her childhood home. She'd imagine London, the back of Simon's Reliant Robin; Helsinki, that train car with Malachi and Ari - it all seemed like a lifetime ago... And it hadn't worked, nothing worked, not until...

Sawdust. She'd tried to smell sawdust, tried to picture what it looked like, what it felt like...When she'd succeeded, she would be lying on the hard floor in a shell of a boat in Gibbs' drafty basement. It wasn't much, but it often worked long enough for her to fall asleep. She'd wondered often if he'd finished the boat. Imagined all myriad of ways he got it from the basement to the water. Sometimes she'd wondered if he ever thought about her. If he knew what had happened, if he knew where she was, would he care?

He would. She knew that too.

Sometimes it helped.

That one, the nice one, the one who's name now escapes her, he had given her the shirt. It had kept her warm, helped her sleep. The nice one; she'd called him that at the time. He given her the shirt, brought her food, water, occasionally tea but... He wasn't nice. She knew that. He still participated...

He still held her down.

She scrubs her hands over her face, draws her breath in deeply, trying to dislodge the feeling. It's all feeling now, all sensations. The air, the smell, the lash of the cane across her feet, the cold blade of the knife...

They'd stopped using the knife like that after a bit. Stopped holding it to her throat as a threat. Because it wasn't. Every time a knife was held to her throat, or a gun to her head, or twine wrapped around her neck, she'd pushed back even harder, tried everything she could to force their hand.

She'd nearly done it several times, pushed Saleem or one of his men to the line - they'd never cross it. And when they didn't get what they wanted, Saleem changed his strategy...

He'd just cut.

Just small cuts, shallow, hundreds of them, that would make it nearly impossible to lie down, that would sting like hell... that would attract the flies...

Occasionally, she'll find a little white scar but for the most part, they're gone. It's amazing what the human body can do, how it can heal, how it can erase the past. It's not fair that the mind doesn't work the same way. If she closes her eyes she can still see his knife: Four inch blade, thin, two nicks, slight curve to the end, bone handle... Very sharp... bloody... her blood.

She tells herself it was nothing. That's a lie. She knows it. It was not nothing.

But it's also not what invades her dreams, what keeps her up at night, what terrifies her, what makes her nauseous.

It's the weight.

The weight of another body over her hers, the feeling, the sound, the smell...

She chokes on her next breath and chastises herself for it. She needs to get over this. _The past is the past.__  
_  
Except that it isn't...

Except that she can't stop shaking.

She rolls onto her side to the edge of the bed, draws her knees up. She contemplates getting up, sitting up, turning on the TV. If she were at home, she wouldn't hesitate.

But... She doesn't want to wake him.

She pushes the covers off completely, lets the coolness of the night air assault her senses once more. She needs to wake up; she needs to dispel all remnants of Saleem and that dark room; to think of something else. She watches the lights through the gap in the curtains - a little piece of Parisian skyline. She's safe here; she's in Paris, in a real bed... And she's not alone.

She'd tried for months not to think about him. Tried and failed miserably. Some days, the days she was left alone, she would spend the whole day thinking about him. But the little things she loved would quickly degenerate into the things _she'd_ done.

The last time she saw him. The last thing she said to Gibbs...

She hated herself for it; Tony had to hate her too.

And that... That made her feel sick, made her hate herself more, made her welcome another visit from Saleem's men.

_It is justified._

And there it is again, that feeling creeping over her - _Fear_ - pulling her down, threatening to suffocate her. She draws her breath deeply, blows it out slowly, tries not to let it overtake her, not again. But she's tired and she can't-

He rolls toward her, throws an arm over her; his hand falls at her waist, slides under her hip, pulls her back to the center of the bed, to him.

She nearly panics.

Nearly... But it's Tony.

_What did he just say? Something about Salma Hayek?_

_Damn it._

He's awake.

Not hard to tell. He's holding his breath. Holding his breath like he's afraid of what she's going to do. It doesn't help. It turns her stomach to knots.

She's not going to _do_ anything. It's Tony.

She should've taken the couch. She's woken him up. If she's woken him up, does he know? He'll suspect. She has to get it under control; get herself under control.

She doesn't want his pity. She doesn't want-

He's breathing again. A little too deeply, a little too slowly...

He's pretending to be asleep. She's thankful he doesn't try and get her to talk. She doesn't want to talk.

She wants to forget. She wants it to go away.

She bites her lip and tries to think of something else.

Breathing...

Soft, warm breath against the side of her face. She shuts her eyes. Concentrates on that feeling; on the sound of his breathing; his hand on her hip; the smell of his skin... Now McGee, McGee wears a nicer cologne, but Tony...Tony just smells so good...

And he's warm. He's shirtless, in a cold room and with barely any blankets and he's warm. It makes her smile. Makes her grateful. So grateful for him. For the fact that she's even here, that she's no longer living a nightmare - because of him.

She shifts a bit, getting comfortable, sliding backward a little until her shoulders make contact with his chest. More warmth; it sends a shiver down her spine. She takes another deep breath and lets it go. Lets it all go. And a small, dark, cold, room in the desert disappears, replaced by a real bed in a four star hotel, by starched, white linen, and a Parisian skyline... and Tony.

Maybe he thinks she's asleep or maybe he doesn't care if she knows anymore but he reaches down and pulls the blankets up over both of them, sliding his arm back around her; tighter this time. His breath now falls against her ear, stubble on his chin scrapes the side of her neck...

And she sleeps.

*

*


End file.
